Blockbuster Express Now Supports Online Rentals

Back in December I reviewed the movie kiosk service Blockbuster Express. The kiosks have been popping up all over NYC (this morning I noticed one in Gristedes supermarket). What’s great about the Blockbuster Express machines is that you can rent from one machine and return at another machine. The rentals are $1/day and there are a ton of online coupons floating around so many times you can grab the rental for free.

The movie kiosk leader, Redbox, has several advantages over the Blockbuster Express kiosks. RedBox appears to have a larger selection of movies and they also allow you to pre-rent the movie online and then pick it up at the kiosk.

Today Blockbuster Express announced that you can now pre-rent the movies at one of their kiosks online as well. This is awesome because you can see if the kiosk you typically rent from has the movies you are interested in renting before making a trip over to the location. And if a particular movie isn’t available at your preferred kiosk, the website will provide alternate kiosk locations that have the movie in stock.

As I noted in my post, I think these type of kiosk machines are the future. From the Redbox and Blockbuster Express movie rentals, the postal kiosks, to Macy’s electronics kiosks and even the BestBuy airport electronics kiosks, how long will it be before whole stores are replaced with kiosks?

Jan Chipchase (one of my favorite blogs) has an excellent post looking at Redbox and vending in general.